112 Background: The benefits of early integration of palliative care (PC) in oncology have been well established yet, there remain significant barriers to PC integration, especially in the setting of pediatric hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT). HSCT patients are prone to a great degree of treatment related toxicity and are at high risk for morbidity and mortality and, while ideally suited to benefit, inherent factors in this cure oriented field preclude the integration of PC services. Most notably, family receptivity to PC is often perceived as a barrier in HSCT yet there is no data on family attitudes toward PC in this setting. This study aimed to evaluate perceived symptom burden and patient and parent attitudes toward early PC integration in pediatric HSCT. Methods: After IRB approval, development and pre-testing, novel survey tools were administered to HSCT patients and parents. Eligibility criteria included parent of an HSCT recipient < age 10 or patient/parent dyad for patients aged 10-17, time from HSCT > 1 month and < 1 year, English-speaking, and consent/assent. Data was assessed for trends in response content frequencies, percentages and parent/child concordance. Results: Interim analysis of the first 34 participants revealed high levels of perceived symptom related suffering in the first month of HSCT with suffering from: nausea 96%, loss of appetite 88%, diarrhea 88%, pain 83%, depression 79%, anxiety 75%, and constipation 42%. 90% of patients and 71% parents expressed that a great deal or a lot of attention should be paid to quality of life from the start of HSCT. The majority of patient and parent respondents (60/46%) indicated they would likely want to meet with PC early in HSCT and very few reported definite opposition (0% children, 4% parents). Conclusions: Pediatric HSCT patients experience a high degree of symptom related suffering, perceive quality of life as a high priority, and are largely in favor of early PC involvement. Our findings suggest that family receptivity should not be a barrier to early PC in pediatric HSCT and that aggressive cure directed therapy can and should be accompanied by aggressive quality of life directed care through early PC integration.
Correlation of Medication Burden and Quality of Life in Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant Patients
